Archive for the ‘Pamela Geller’ Category

Well, who knew soup could be so dangerous to democracy? At least, that’s what promoters of the growing and increasingly bizarre anti-Muslim hate campaign would seem to think.

This week right-wing blogger Pamela Geller called for a boycott of Campell’s Soup because Campbell’s Canada now sells soup certified as Halal by the Islamic Society of North America. You might remember our earlier report about Geller’s fear that Muslims are trying to “Islamicize” public schools in America. And last November she was the featured guest at a Republican fundraiser in McKinney just north of Dallas. (Members of the so-called “Patriot Host Committee” included Texas lawmakers like state Reps. Jodie Laubenberg of Parker and Ken Paxton of McKinney.)

“Since before he was elected, controversy has stirred over the extent of President Obama’s ties to Islam. During the campaign, he spoke openly of both his Muslim upbringing and his adult conversion to Christianity. But now two major Middle East media outlets — Nile TV International and Israel Today Magazine — are reporting that the president has admitted in recent months that he is a Muslim.

Those outlets say that Obama, in a one-on-one meeting earlier this year with Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit, told Gheit that he was still a Muslim, the son of a Muslim father, and the step-son of a Muslim step-father; that his half brothers in Kenya are Muslims; and that he was sympathetic towards the Muslim agenda.”

One thing you can be sure of: when the religious right and its supporters talk about “religious freedom,” they’re not talking about freedom for people of all religions. They want government to pick and choose which people of faith will be more free than others. The far-right faction on the Texas State Board of Education offers repeated examples of this kind of hypocrisy. Another example is a new anti-Muslim screed making the rounds on the Internet, criticizing what it calls efforts to “islamicize our schools.”

The author of the piece is Pamela Geller, a blogger and commentator popular in the far-right media (including the cable news networks). Think Ann Coulter, but with even less restraint or shame. Seriously.

“Check out this ‘instruction sheet’ to Muslims on how to islamicize their public schools. There is no separation of mosque and state — mosque is state in Islam. If this guide shows us anything, it’s what idiots they take us for. This is, of course, an outrage. None of this should be introduced into the public school. If this is what Muslim parents want, they should send their children to madrassah.”